Today is the day I took off from the paycheck job. That doesn't mean I was idle all day, no siree.

It appears WordPress is listening to the masses for the first time I know of. There have been changes to the new reader, and they are positive ones. I made a comment on the original launch blog, and a fellow commenter asked me to chime in on one of the forums. She even provided a link.

This was in the middle of a pretty tough work week, but I made it there for a look around today. I didn't stay long, because they've made some changes. Another whiner isn't going to help matters at this point.

It looks like they did away with the estimate about how long reading a post should take. Many commented on being insulted by this, and mentioned that it encourages viewers to pass over the post. The old word count version is back. I suspect it was the visually handicapped commenters that saw this through, and there were several.

There is now a link button at the bottom of each entry. If you click on that, it goes directly to the website without all the BS stops in between. I'm not changing back from the preview just yet. The dust hasn't completely settled.

Reblogs are kind of a nightmare still, and I'm not changing anything in my life over it. They may address it soon.

I exchanged emails with a couple of artists today. I'm pretty excited about my upcoming projects. My goal is to self publish two books by the end of the year.

I assembled one of those books today. This is the book of short stories. I probably ought to include a free section of one of my novels at the back of the book. Opinions? What are Amazon's rules about this? I may have an additional research project ahead of me.

I still have one short story that's half written. This really galls me, because I hate to leave things unwritten. It was the idea I was most in love with, and it just isn't coming together. I may scrap the idea. I may start over again and scrap the writing I have so far. No idea yet. It may not go in the book.

Speaking of the short story book, does anyone have a simple tutorial to make a good active table of contents? I have some various links saved, but I'm looking for something more like a recipe card. Step one, step two, etc. This has never been a problem when my novel chapters are labeled 1, 2, 3, etc. Does anyone do this for goodwill points?

My goal is to release this book somewhere between September 1, and October 15. Would anyone like to chime in about the value of pre-selling a book? I'm willing to try new things.

I also need to spend more time on the details, and polish it a bit. I'll probably ask for advance readers in a few more weeks.

I finished my beta reading project today and sent the notes off. These are fun projects, but are a lot of work. There were people there for me, and I believe in paying it back.

If you look way back to January, I posted about how I don't make resolutions. I like to have a loose business plan instead. Part of that plan was to get some nice business cards made up. A friend designed them for me, and I ordered them from Vistaprint today.

I'm awaiting an invoice for some new blog art. I'm looking for two images to help with the short stories, and two to help with the release of The Playground later on. Lisa, the robot girl, is pretty excited about it all.

I also managed to pay all the bills today. My wife made an unexpected visit to Nevada to visit family. I'm a bachelor again this weekend. Does anyone want to go see Antman?

I don’t think Amazon has rules about the free section. Personally, I wouldn’t go beyond a chapter or higher than 10 pages. Just me though. A new trick I’ve been taught is to include a link to already published works in the newer file. This allows a reader of the short stories to immediately check out whatever is connected to the excerpt. I think you’re only allowed to use Amazon links though. At least when you’re on Kindle.

Seeing Ant-Man on Sunday. Glad we got the tickets early because the showing was almost full already.

I include links in the back. I also update the older books. Small cover images have given me formatting fits though. I wonder if it’s acceptable for a book that hasn’t been released yet? I’m thinking part of Wisp, which is available, and part of Playground which is coming soon.

That’s a tough one. If you’re under Kindle Select then you have to be exclusive. I know one can use at most 10% of the overall work as a promotional excerpt, but I don’t know how it works with published books.

I wouldn’t like to see Antman, but I think you should go!
I paid all the bills after logging all the vacation expenses. That had to be one of the longest hours of my life. I was like, “At some point the subtraction has got to stop!” LOL
I’m glad they’re listening about the reader. I’m still not thrilled about it.
I think I’d put my best foot forward on short stories — whatever you got the best feedback on should be in the front. Kinda like a mixed tape, haha, Best, good, good, better, good, good, almost best 😉

I have long TOCs in my books, as I have lots of short chapters. They all have titles, and link to the start of each chapter. It’s not that difficult to do. I also put the TOC at the back of the eBook so it doesn’t use up all my 10% look inside feature. Email me with your questions and I’ll help if I can.